Our 4.5 billion-year old Solar System exits in a universe that is estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. Experts believe that there could be advanced civilizations out there that have existed for 1.8 gigayears (one gigayear = one billion years).

Lord Martin Rees, a leading cosmologist and astrophysicist who is the president of Britain’s Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen of England. has said that he believes the existence of extra terrestrial life may be beyond human understanding.

“They could be staring us in the face and we just don’t recognize them. The problem is that we’re looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology."

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there as aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”

Comments

Hopefully, someone/agency “up top” has done a matrix of ET life form possibilities. Personally, I am both bothered and intrigued by the apparent NASA focus on looking for ET life that resembles us - either chemically or physically, i.e., in the “Goldilocks” zones of distant stars - when we have ample examples of strangely shaped life here on earth…with varying chemistries.

My theory is that the type of intelligence exhibited by Homo Sapiens is NOT stable. Being unstable it is likely to become something that does not successfully promote the life form it inhabits.

Perhaps intelligence is more of a short term phenomena that, due to its instability, is not around long enough to evolve the kind of advanced technical activities necessary for us to observe their artifacts. In other words, intelligence may not be a evolutionary process that is successful.

While some life forms may evolve a form of intelligence that survives, that evolution may produce a form of intelligence that does not find purpose in the development of technologies we consider a natural part of our history.

I think its entirely reasonable to assume that the universe is home to older civilizations. Every new piece of news we see about our universe these days points to it. Scientists now understand that stars themselves can create complex organic matter and also spread it throughout the cosmos. That alone should make people stop and think. Star trek is one of my favorite shows ever, because i think it gives humanity a glimpse into our own future.

Lord Rees very may well be correct. However, that does not mean that just because these un-unstandandable civilizations exist that other less sophisticated civilization don't exist elsewhere. I can think of one example.
We need to continue looking for what we know to look for while at the same time remain mindful of the fact there is likely "life" out there that is beyond our comprehension.
To paraphrase the article asking us to imagine that which we cannot imagine, is like asking a chimp to understand quantum theory. Give us some bananas first...

I wonder how the scientific community would respond to this article if we replaced "life form beyond comprehension" with God?... I bet it would become pretty controversial.
"Staring at us right in the face"... I love that line.

Descartes declared animals to be automatons with no mind, and feeling no pain; a convenient belief considering the cruelty with which we treat all other creatures on our planet- which share not only our precise biochemical environment, but our very DNA- we treat them as food or pets, prey or pests. And while many individuals have rewarding relationships with their pet animal, as a society we make no effort to communicate with our other co-species; we are alone with our minds and they are nothing.
Therefore it would be fitting if an extraterrestrial intelligence came up and bit us on the ass.

There is so much we can see here on earth, which points to the existence of extra terrestrial intelligent beings...pyramids which even we would struggle to build, with our contemporary 'advanced' technology, flying machines (Vimana) described in ancient written records, ancient artifacts which defy belief, to name afew...it's got to be out there somewhere (maybe even here and we just don't recognise it or we just can't see it, from our blinkered perspective).

I think of earth as a gemstone whizzing through space. The stars do indeed produce organic matter, soooo its safe to say there will be other gems many older & perhaps far rarer than our wee genstone.
It makes for perfect thinking that we've been 'discovered' at some point in the past.... i just think the prime directive order has been put in place over our wee gemstone.

If the universe is infinite, what does being 13,? billion years old mean?
No way it may be finite? What is close to being finite, is our planet, due to the irresponsible population growth, which nobody dares to recognize as a threat... The growth is what benefits organizations like the UN.... so...

Matt Rhodes. The human brain is an incredibly complex Quantic device, and the more it is explored, the more incomprehensible it becomes for those who only try to understand its visible physical characteristics.
It is too big for humanity as it is. Just look what the no brains are doing to the US.

I sometimes find it difficult to here people still existing with old assumptions. With no awareness of the environment they live in, just existing in the reality provided by the Matrix (the system. tv. radio etc). The fact is aliens are here now and have been with us for a long time. It's self-evident that they clearly exist and have history on this planet. it's in our history and the evidence is quite overwhelming. Except people need the system to validate this and everything else not approved by the oligarchs. Wake up, and disconnect from the matrix and start thinking for yourself, be a "critical thinker". I don't need the government to tell me what is real and what is not.

21 december 2012 its not the end of the world but the date when humans will suffer a shift in consciousness and expand brain capacity, my grandgrangrangrangrangran father mayan priest told me in a dream.

Extraterrestrials billions of years more advanced than us possibly just flow through the universe completely invisible to beings in lesser stages of evolution, they are like pure self organized energy, a giant collective of subatomic particles that work like an almost omniscient and omnipresent entity capable of manipulating and penetrating different space-time continuums. It flows in and out of several dimensions including ours, observing, colecting and perhaps growing, evolving still further, reaching for total knowledge.

Its clear to me that there is a limit to the amount of intelligence that can possibly evolve. All our new intelligence now comes from our culture. All our major achievements have slowly built up over time through our culture. Our brains are clearly not evolving into more intelligent ones, if anything, the advent of newer technologies will only make our lives easier, and so the selection pressure to become more intelligent just isn't there. So I'm saying there's a limit to evolved intelligence.

I would have to disagree with that statement in full, while i agree with you're assertion that technology tends to make humanity dumber by our increasing dependency on it. That being said once we give birth to a true artificial intelligence, all bets are off at that point. We have no idea how fast or to what level a artificial intelligence would evolve. It may just change everything. In fact i would have to bet that first contact between humans and an advanced alien race would not be between flesh and blood beings. But a highly advanced artificial intelligence emissary. Searching the universe for signs of life, documenting it and reporting back to its creators.

Dr Stephen Hawking hit the Nail on the head. The reason we are in search of intelligent life some where in the universe, is that we now know that none exist here, on This Marvelous Planet Earth. We are learning more every day, but time is running out. “There is Intelligent Life in many parts of the universe and they know that we (Humanity) are here. “However”, Earth has been quarantined. “Humanity” is Earth's Cancer. It is the single life form that can be totally removed from the planet and that would contribute to a profound positive evolutionary effect. Earth is an important place in the Solar system and Humanity will not be permitted to contaminate it. Just wait and see. Besides even if Extraterrestrials tried to communicate, we lack the capacity to understand. I think Humanity is an experiment and the projected possibilities don't look too promising. It needs to be terminated and restarted, before the pietry dish, (Earth), is destroyed.

For well over a hundred years....man....has been kept minimally aware, and intentionally dumbed down and denied access to even 5% of what is physically and mentally (spiritually) our potential. If one accepts the proven axiom that "military" technology progresses in 2 years.......what "we" are given to know in 40 years....................think at what toys and potantials "we" should have been beneficiary to...........BUT..............that would upset the current (last 100+) year applecart. Rothschild banking-indebtedness.......(slavery and distraction) yet another isses. Cheers.......I use to think a man NUTS for saying "kill your TV".......I now see why it's been said (among many other axioms)......Best to all.

PS....one a man's potentials......is spelling potential correctly....sorry folks for the spelling error. "And" ( remember it is incorrect to start a sentence with "and")...there is indeed an awakening occuring.......I shall stop there less I babble-on. Best